The roadmap for digital transformation 2024–2030 for North Macedonia

November 2023

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Strategies and Action Plans

The Roadmap for Digital Transformation 2024–2030 for North Macedonia presents a detailed and ambitious plan for reshaping public services and governance through digitalisation.

The roadmap is grounded in the Concept for Digital Transformation of Society, a high-level policy endorsed by the National Council and supported by USAID’s CIDR program. The Government of North Macedonia considers digital transformation a national priority to:

  • increase transparency and good governance,
  • fight corruption,
  • improve efficiency, and
  • enable citizen-centric services.

The roadmap complements existing strategies such as public administration reform and the national ICT strategy. It includes a visual timeline, budget estimates, and short-, medium-, and long-term milestones extending to 2030.

Guiding principles

The roadmap is built upon several fundamental principles:

  • Rule of law
  • Social cohesion
  • Public-private partnerships
  • Free access to public information
  • ‘Single source of truth’
  • ‘Digital-by-default’
  • ‘Once-only’ principle

Implementation approach

To ensure effective digital transformation, the roadmap promotes:

  • Regulation that is rights-respecting and tech-neutral
  • Early and wide engagement with stakeholders
  • Continuous capacity development and collaboration
  • Infrastructure and data management
  • Broad education on digital literacy (ages 7 to 77)
  • Reuse and sharing of digital tools
  • Cybersecurity embedded from the start
  • Promoting success stories and innovations

Strategic initiatives by area

1. political and institutional foundations

  • Establish Agency for Network and Information Systems (with a cybersecurity mandate) by end of 2025 – €2M
  • Legal framework for e-ID cards – no additional cost
  • Innovation support policy (including AI R&D) – 2% of GDP
  • Reform IT roles in public administration – no additional cost
  • Revitalise e-democracy platforms with inclusive design – €200K

2. open public information

  • Upgrade and maintain the open-data portal (data.gov.mk) – €150K
  • Add analytics and real-time tools to the portal – €100K

3. single sources of truth

  • Digitalise key national registers (population, land, tax, health, etc.) and adopt data quality standards – €1.5M
  • Update the Law on Central Population Register – no cost
  • e-Health Record system with analytics – €750K

4. digital-by-default services

This is the largest and most ambitious pillar, with 17 initiatives:

  • Human-centred design in service delivery – €100K
  • Legal alignment with eIDAS (Electronic ID regulation) – continuous
  • Digital infrastructure (equipment, servers, security, tools) – €4M
  • Common platforms across all institutions (ERP, HRMIS, LMS, etc.) – €70K per institution
  • New Law on Recordkeeping and implementation of ARCHIMAK system – €1M
  • National eID and Mobile eID systems – €20M
  • Institution-specific internal process digitalisation – €150K per institution
  • New and improved e-services – €500K/year
  • GovCloud infrastructure – €3M
  • Data Embassy abroad for national data backup – TBD
  • National transport portal – €500K (initial phase)
  • Integrated financial management system – €20M
  • Upgrade school management systems – €300K
  • E-textbooks portal for students – €200K
  • Text-to-Speech/Speech-to-Text (AI-based) – €200K
  • EUDI Wallet (digital IDs and credentials) – TBD

5. once-only principle

  • Enhance Interoperability Platform (Push/Pull, API) – €2M
  • Law amendments for public e-services fee list – €100K

Timeline overview

  • 2024–2025: Priority on foundational laws, e-services, e-ID, innovation, recordkeeping, and human-centred design.
  • 2026: Completion of digital registers, ARCHIMAK, digital infrastructure, GovCloud.
  • 2027–2029: Integrated financial systems, transport portal, Data Embassy.
  • 2030: Full implementation review.